Miracle of Birth In Your Small Corner

We began this week with many living thoughts and being strengthened in faith, hope and assurances that the Miracle of Christmas is not dead or dormant. It is the Miracle of Christmas, which has given miraculous birth to other miracles. We have already been made to look with more informed eyes on the miracle of the Word given birth in the shepherds who began by being afraid. We were assured that it was not too late for anyone of us, who dared to believe and receive, to be blessed by one or all of the miracles of birth.

Today, we wait for this special word to be conceived in us, as our Lord dictates. 

When Susan Warner penned the children’s hymn, ‘Jesus bids us shine with a clear, pure light’, so many years ago, she probably never imagined the heavy debates one recurring line in her hymn would have sparked, decades after. At the end of each verse this clause can be found. You in your small corner and I in mine. Scholars; preachers and teachers of the Lord Jesus, have argued that the words of the hymn convey and tell the wrong news to children. They argue that the message conveyed by the hymn, encourages selfishness, insularity and a host of other negatives. Some argue that none of these is what Jesus has commissioned His disciples to do. As for me, an ordinary follower of Jesus, without claims of scholarship or any such study, I still see merit in this hymn. I have asked God to help me be a light in my small corner, as my corner is where I am and there is darkness all around.

Most unexpectedly, totally illuminating and fully miraculous, our Lord has brightened my corner by giving me Birth of a New Word, a new message, in my small corner. God, the Holy Spirit, our Teacher and Guide has conceived this word, not just in me, but faith allows me to believe that this same word is being birthed in you also.

Our Teacher and Guide, is showing us that there is merit and miracle in this whole understanding of, ‘your small corner’, as has been demonstrated in the Advent Story. God has explained, shown and made unmistakably clear, the pleasure, obligation and expectation of one’s small corner, in the Miracle Birth of His Son, Jesus. I ask you, is this not also the miracle of the Birth of the Word made flesh, come to dwell among us?

Our attention is now turned to Luke 2: 3 - 7. And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.  He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.  

Here are a few facts, of which we are advised to take full note. We should receive these mentally, spiritually and actively.

God chose to make His miracle of the coming of Messiah at a time when people were in their own corners. 

God chose to make the miracle of birth at a time when everyone who was away from their small corners had returned.

God chose to become visible to the world, as a little Light, in the littleness of a human baby, in a small town called Bethlehem and in a small corner called a manger.

Have you ever sat down for the Holy Spirit, your faithful Teacher and Guide, who leads into all truth, to bring His wisdom to you, in your small corner? Ask, you will be told. 

We continue this tomorrow.